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Where in the World Is Howard Headed?

As we wrote yesterday, reporting on rumor is not typically the province of the Fix. But with the fever pitch regarding Dwight Howard’s movement at an all-time high, it’s sort of hard not to. Right now, the report with the most traction seems to be a four-team, 10-player trade between Howard’s Orlando Magic, the Brooklyn Nets, the Cleveland Cavaliers and some yet-defined fourth partner. The most important part: Brooklyn would receive the superstar center. That’s what Howard has been asking for all along, having claimed he won’t sign an extension with any other team. Still, when the primary piece in trading for a three-time Defensive Player of the Year is a guy who’s better at naming the members of the X-Men than he is at rebounding, it’s safe to say the Magic might not be getting equivalent value. “I think the question [Orlando general manager] Rob Hennigan has to ask himself is if a deal grabbing at scraps and picks is good enough to pull the trigger or if maybe just letting Howard expire and going for a little sign-and-trade type of deal like what Cleveland did with LeBron James is a better plan,” Royce Young writes for CBS sports. “It might result in some painful seasons, but it could also open a better long-term plan.”

Associated Press

Dwight Howard’s Kryptonite: trade talks.

While the Magic technically have that right, it’s hard to imagine the publicly disgruntled Howard slogging through an entire year with a team he’s stopped pretending to like. Even if he takes all of his free throws by whipping them with one hand at the rim, the demand for his services won’t ebb in any meaningful way. He still can dictate where he goes, putting Orlando in the impossible position of negotiating a nonexistent fair deal for a Hall-of-Famer the Magic would prefer not to lose. This type of situation is what the lockout was supposed to fix, of course. “The NBA limited superstars’ power in free agency. The superstars and their agents adapted and wield their power in a different way,” SB Nation’s Tom Ziller writes. “The result is the same: Stars leave markets like New Orleans and Orlando for places like Los Angeles and New York. Well, I’m sure glad we fixed competitive balance last year.”

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There are embarrassing ways to go out at the Home Run Derby, such as failing to do the only thing you’re there to do. (It involves a ball and a bat.) Presumably, it gets even worse when the crowd is heckling you for a perceived slight, as Robinson Cano found out when the Kansas City audience had nothing but unkind jeers during his 0-for-10 performance at Monday’s All-Star event. Cano didn’t select hometown hero Billy Butler to participate in the event, which isn’t the most egregious oversight considering Butler is tied for 16th in the American League for home runs. As a result, the environment certainly didn’t help Cano defend his title from last year’s Derby, or come anywhere close. Instead, Prince Fielder coasted to his second win at the event, an effort that could be analyzed by simply saying, “He likes doing this and he’s really good at it.”

What’s potentially more interesting is wondering how the Derby can be saved from itself: The event was timed at nearly three hours this year, which is as long as a real game. Goofy ideas abound, but Sports Illustrated’s Joe Lemire has some practical ways to streamline and speed things up. “The solution could be eliminating the semifinal round altogether. Maybe that’s too drastic but it’s possible to go from the eight-man opener to a four-person final round, naming the hitter with the highest cumulative total the winner,” he writes. “Or if interest in the drama of a one-on-one finale is too compelling, one could simply reduce the allotted outs in the semis and finals from 10-to-5. Bottoms of the ninth are so engrossing because they represent do-or-die moments, and such a contraction of the Derby would create a heightened interest in each swing, while keeping the sequencing of the Derby intact.” But when the counterpoint is as easy as “the more dingers, the better,” it might be a while before anything changes.

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There are still a few years until college football switches to a playoff format, which allows plenty of time for every lingering issue — such as the selection process — to be worked out. But college entities are already moving quickly to ensure they’ll be a part of the picture, as we saw last week when the Atlantic Coast Conference signed a 12-year deal to guarantee its champion would automatically play the Orange Bowl in the years when it didn’t host a playoff, similar to the agreement between the Rose Bowl, Big Ten and the Pac-12. (The semifinal games will be rotated between four bowls every year.) Now, Notre Dame is in talks to join that agreement, echoing comments made last week by ACC commissioner John Swofford. The famously independent Fighting Irish have always flirted with other conferences without doing much, but the consolidation of power is perfectly timed. As Matt Hinton points out for CBS Sports, there may be as few as three non-contract spots in the major bowl games to go around, meaning Notre Dame would have an obvious interest in making sure they won’t be left out.

But first, they’ll have to focus on getting good. “Yes, that assurance could come at the expense of a mid-major outfit that can’t promise a sellout or a huge TV rating, but old Notre Dame will never be handed a golden ticket based on echoes alone,” Hinton writes. “Its current arrangement with BCS guarantees the Irish access to one of the big-money bowls if they finish with either a top-ten ranking in the BCS standings or nine wins in the regular season, hurdles they’ve managed to clear just three times in the Series’ 14-year existence. Any deal with the Orange Bowl (or any other major bowl) is likely to come with criteria in the same vein, based on the selection committee poll that will replace the BCS standings. So before they start counting out their cut in full view of the poor, pauper conferences for whom nothing in the new system is guaranteed, they still have some work to do on the product on the field.”

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